as
only an excuse on his mother's part to get him out of the way. For
there was a lack of room. If she had wanted to use Walter about the
house, it is questionable if she had discovered anything especially
respectable about those boys.

Many laws and most customs have their origin in a "lack of room"--in
the intellect, in one's character, in the house or flat, in the fields,
in the city.

This applies to the preference for the right hand--a result of
crowding at the table--to the institution of marriage, and to many
things lying between these extremes.

CHAPTER III

We will not try to explain further this fruitful principle of
"limitation of space." Walter knew the fruit of it, even if he failed
to recognize the origin. He was not worried so much by the mere coming
home as by the punishment he expected to receive as soon as that New
Testament should be missed. He had returned from his little excursion
into the country with Glorioso, and now in Amsterdam again the memory
of his recent offense--or shall I say the anticipation of what was
coming?--lay heavily on his mind.

If we could think away all the results of crime committed, there
would be very little left of what we call conscience.

But Walter consoled himself with the thought that it wasn't a thimble
this time. The testament will not be missed at once, he reflected,
because Sunday was a long way off, and no one would ask about it
during the week.

No, it was not a thimble, or a knitting-needle, or a sugar-bowl,
or anything in daily use.

When our hero got home, he stuck his greasy Glorioso under Leentje's
sewing-table--the same Leentje who had sewed up his breeches after
that wonderful leap, so that his mother never found out about it. She
went down to her grave in ignorance of these torn breeches.

But Leentje was employed to patch breeches and such things. She
received for this seven stivers a week, and every evening a slice of
bread and butter.

Long after the Habakkuk period, Walter often thought of her humble
"Good-evening, Juffrouw; good-evening, M'neer and the young Juffrouwen;
good-evening, Walter," etc.

Yes, Walter's mother was called Juffrouw, on account of the
shoe-business. For Juffrouw is the title of women of the lower middle
classes, while plain working women are called simply Vrouw. Mevrouw
is the title of women of the better classes. And so it is in the
Netherlands till to-day: The social structure is a series of classes,